DigiTop at the US Forest Service

• FY08 Forest Service DigiTop funding: Yahoo! DigiTop is funded!
• US Forest Service paid $400,000 to DigiTop/NAL in FY05. This money paid for "the current existing condition" NOT the "desired future condition" just yet.
• All of the money is being used for currently received items.
• JSTOR is available through NFSL (certain parts relating to our FS mission)
• The cost for electronic access to journals is an add-on to the prices USDA locations have already paid for subscriptions to the printed versions of the journals. Most journal publishers (but not all) continue requiring USDA to maintain print subscriptions in order to acquire electronic journal access, adding a marginal price for electronic access on top of the prices paid across USDA for the print version. This means that USDA locations should NOT cancel print subscriptions for journals from these publishers without contacting NAL first, because electronic access is likely to be cancelled as well.

In future years, as we move from a "print plus electronic" model to a "mostly electronic" or "electronic only" model, we will need to fund the total cost of publication content to acquire electronic access. The advantage of funding electronic access through DigiTop's unifying mechanism will be wider, more convenient, and economical access for more USDA staff to a greater array of journals.

• We have NOT listed ALL the journals available from publishers; only those in which people expressed interest. Check the DigiTop list of journals (Serials Solutions link on DigiTop page) for all titles currently available.

DigiTop: Run by the National Agriculture Library (NAL) for all of USDA. DigiTop provides electronic access to full text journals and information databases with value to USDA employees.

Journal Selection: When you were browsing DigiTop did you ever see a journal where you wondered, "Who in USDA would want that?!" This might be your first insight into how publishers or literature database companies think. NAL serves as our liaison with all the publishers. Publishers or Database vendors offer journals in bundles. We can't subscribe to individual journals, in general. Consequently, when we subscribe to a publisher for a particular journal we might also get a number of other journals that are a low priority or of no value to us. Its simply part of a package deal.

Forest Service Journal & Database Request List (a.k.a. Wish List)
List based on 2005/2006 survey. Shows purchasing status.

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National Forest Service Libary: Internal site.
Many journals are available through the FS libraries (NFSL) that people cannot reach directly. NFSL can retrieve articles and email them to FS employees.

Forest Service DigTop AdHoc Committee (in alphabetical order)

Diane E Banegas
Julie Blankenburg
Debra J Dietzman
Sharon Friedman
Laura Hutchinson
Claire Payne
John Pye
Cynthia L Miner
Carol Whitlock
Jeff Witcosky
Shelly Witt